Francis Coppola's grandiose, overtly metaphysical 1979 film about the Vietnam war, culled indirectly from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Michael Herr's Dispatches, took 238 days to shoot and cost more than double its original budget.

International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell has rejected claims that the Government is putting Britain's security concerns ahead of aid priorities by trimming the number of countries which will receive assistance from the UK.